[Photos/Video] “The Black Community Stands With Palestine from Oakland to Ferguson”

Oakland, California

How does one honor the call to “black out black Friday” for Mike Brown & Ferguson, to Boycott Walmart and to connect all the dots by showing solidarity w/ Palestine and BDS? Here’s How:

In the Bay Area protestors know how to be creative. In the past week since the acquittal of Darren Wilson in the murder of Mike Brown demonstrations have moved away from symbolism to strategy through diversifying tactics:

On the Issue of Israel’s Radicals [PART TWO: Exposing the Israeli Left]

Originally Posted on State Of Hawiya

Written by Linah Alsaafin and Budour Hassan

 

While it’s necessary and urgent to delegitimize liberal Zionists, less clear is the position we should take from the anti-Zionist left. And although anti-Zionist Israelis are so few and far between and can hardly be considered a significant segment of the political or social sphere in Israel, they receive disproportionate coverage especially in progressive media outlets. We are aware, however, that this debate remains an elitist one centered on social media and the blogosphere and does not really preoccupy most Palestinians on the ground because they don’t even know about the anti-Zionist minority. And frankly, they are not supposed to care either.

During the last month, anti-Zionists have organized several small vigils against the aggression on Gaza in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem. Those protests were often attacked by right-wing mob, as were individual and human rights organizations that are outspoken against Israeli crimes in Gaza. Veteran Israeli activists would quickly point out that this level of incitement against them is unprecedented and would go on to say something to the effect: “Leftists are the new Palestinians,” or “Palestinians and Israeli leftists are the victims of this new wave of Israeli racism.” The common theme in all that they say and write is the portrayal of Israeli leftists as victims.

No, dear Israeli radical leftists, you are not victims. You are part of the problem. You are part of the reason why our people continue to suffer. Your very existence at the moment comes at the expense of the refugees who were ethnically cleansed from Palestine and who continue to be bombed by Israel in Gaza. Just because you are beginning to experience a tiny fraction of what Palestinians face on a daily basis doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to play the victim role or even imagine the possibility of equating your “suffering” to that of the Palestinians.

It’s Still True: Their Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers

This week, Israeli soldiers invaded Bethlehem refugee camps, barged into Palestinian homes around the country, kidnapped and injured scores of people and debated the Prawar-Begin Plan (a plan that will demolish dozens of villages and displace Bedouins who are indigenous to the area). Meanwhile, Zionist watchdog AMCHA Initiative from Santa Cruz has demanded San Francisco State University administrators repress any messaging that sounds like militant self-defense against the Israel occupation and genocide. Despite Zionist-bullying, on Thursday, student groups defied the smear campaign and held another assembly at SFSU’s Malcom X Plaza.

AMCHA came after the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) last week after the group hosted their sixth annual celebration of the Edward Said campus mural. A table at the celebration displayed stencils declaring “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers.” AMCHA called the students’ messaging “anti-Semitic” and said the stencils “glorified the murder of Jews.” AMCHA alerted the Simon Weisenthal Center, which successfully lobbied for the administration’s alliance. (This isn’t the first time this has happened at SFSU. For one example of many: remember in 1994, when the school had the original Malcom X mural sandblasted from a building?)

Edward Said mural on SFSU campus

Not-so-ironically, the student group that brought the stencil is not a Palestinian group, but rather the Student Kouncil of Intertribal Nations. The stencil wording has been used for years by indigenous groups to commemorate the resistance to genocide(s) committed across the continent.

Other groups who are unapologetically supporting the messaging and who participated in Thursday’s rally include Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Atzlàn (MEChA), La Raza Student Organization, Feminism in Action and the League of Filipino Students. The rally was not in response to the Zionist attack alone: students were also opposing implementation plans for campus police tasers and the privatization of the student center, as well as drawing attention to a labor conflict between the school and the student center janitors.

We spoke with a few students who helped put on the event. We prefer not to edit what people have to say, so we’ve published the comments in full:

Note From Revolutionaries of Color II

Davis, California. Reposted from DavisAntiZionism

“At whatever level we study it… decolonization is quite simply the replacing of a certain ‘species’ of men by another ‘species’ of men.Without any period of transition, there is a total, complete, and absolute substitution.” -Frantz Fanon

“Indeed our words will remain lifeless, barren, devoid of any passion, until we die as a result of these words, whereupon our words will suddenly spring to life and live amongst the hearts that are dead, bringing them to life as well.” -Sayyid Qutb

Sayyid Qutb on trial in 1966 under the Gamal

We, the anti-Zionists and radicals (of color), organized to take over Dutton Hall at the University of California, Davis on May 15, 2013, the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. The administration, Zionists on and off campus, and local media have tried to misrepresent what took place that day, and this is why it is necessary that we send a clear and direct message.